Page 10 - August 2015 Volume 9, Number 8

FAA Reauthorization
Bill Deferred, NBAA
Requests Call to Action
by Kim Blonigen
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
notified aviation groups
that House leadership has delayed
floor consideration for the FAA
Reauthorization Bill until September.
As a result, the aviation groups feel the
bill may not be released until closer to
the floor time. The bill was expected to
be presented by Committee chairman, Bill
Shuster (R-Pa.), in July. If the deferment stays, Congress would have little time to pass a bill before the FAA’s current authorization expires on September 30.
While the bill has not been fully detailed publicly, in mid-July Shuster did outline some points of a proposed bill that included the creation of a privatized ATC system that would be funded through aviation user fees. NBAA President and CEO Ed Bolen noted that both of these standpoints run contrary to longstanding positions held by the business aviation community.
“The potentially dire consequences from such actions cannot be overstated,” Bolen wrote in his personal
NBAA President and CEO, Ed Bolen.
appeal to NBAA Members. “Without Congress to ensure that our nation’s air traffic system safeguards the aviation needs of the entire public – including the people and companies that rely on general aviation in small and mid- size towns – such sweeping authority would instead be granted to a group of
self-interested parties.”
In March of this year, Bolen submitted written testimony to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Subcommittee on Aviation outlining nine “guiding principles” NBAA and its Members consider fundamental for ensuring that proposals offered in conjunction with FAA reauthorization support business aviation, which helps generate over a million American jobs and more than $200 billion in economic activity each year.
“The U.S. today has the best air transportation system in the world, but in order for us to be able to make that statement a decade from now, changes will be necessary,” Bolen’s testimony stated. “How we accomplish those changes is at the heart of the reauthorization debate. NBAA and its Members are committed to the changes needed to make NextGen a reality, but we will not support changes that fail to preserve business aviation’s access to airspace and airports in a safe, predictable and affordable manner. The debate over how to get from where we are to where we want to go is one NBAA believes should be undertaken in the context of data, facts and guiding principles.”
Bolen outlined those guiding principles as follows:
Make NextGen a reality. The business aviation community supports a continuing transition to a Next Generation, or “NextGen,” aviation system, but recognizes that the transition will continue to be met with significant challenges, and for America to retain its world-leadership position in aviation, change will be necessary. “Make no mistake about it: no one is content with the clarity, pace or cost of the transition to NextGen to date,” Bolen’s testimony
noted. “We need to do better.”
8 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
AUGUST 2015
AVIATION ISSUES